A Tripartite Self: Mind, Body, and Spirit in Early China

Description

Chinese philosophy has long recognized the importance of the body and emotions in extensive and diverse self-cultivation traditions. Philosophical debates about the relationship between mind and body are often described in terms of mind-body dualism and its opposite, monism or some kind of "holism." Monist or holist views agree on the unity of mind and body, whereas mind-body dualists take body and mind as essentially different. Debates about mind-body dualism have become important in Chinese and comparative philosophy because of claims that there was no mind-body dualism in early China, in contrast to Western traditions. This book argues that there was an important divergence in early China between two views of the self. In one, mind and spirit are closely aligned, and are understood to rule the body as a ruler rules a state. But in the other, the person is tripartite, and mind and spirit are independent entities that cannot be reduced to a material-non-material binary. In some cases, body and spirit are even aligned in opposition to mind. A Tripartite Self addresses both philosophical and technical literatures (including evidence from Chinese excavated texts) to broaden a type of inquiry that frequently is applied only to philosophical texts. Lisa Raphals surveys this divergence and argues for the importance of a tripartite model of the person or self in early Chinese texts through the Han dynasty. The book will shed light on not only important contemporary debates of mind-body dualism within Chinese philosophy but also within East-West comparative approaches to understanding the self. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Notes on Conventions, Editions, and Transcriptions Introduction Intersecting Perspectives Mind–​Body and Spirit–​Body Dualism A Tripartite Self Plan of the Book 1 Semantic Fields of Body, Mind, and Spirit Bodies Minds Spirit(s) 2 Virtue, Body, and Mind in the Shijing Bodies in the Shijing Xin Spirits More on Embodied Virtue Conclusion 3 Mind and Spirit Govern the Body Body, Mind, and Spirits in the Analects The Mozi The Emergence of Internal Spirit in the Guanzi Heart–​Mind as Ruler in the Mencius Xunzi and the Hegemony of the Heart–​Mind Rulers and Ruled in the Guodian Texts The Heart–​Mind Is What Is at the Center (Xin shi wei zhong) Heart–​Mind and Spirit in the Huainanzi and Wenzi Conclusion 4 Body, Mind, and Spirit: A Tripartite View Yang Zhu’s Discovery of the Body Mind and Spirit in the Guanzi The Zhuangzi Spirit and Body in the Shiwen The Huainanzi Conclusion 5 Body, Mind, and Spirit in the Guodian Manuscripts Body, Emotion, and Heart–​Mind in Humans and Animals Heart–​Mind and Body in the Xingzi Mingchu Heart–​Mind and Body in the Wuxing Conclusion 6 Body, Mind, and Spirit in Early Chinese Medicine Mind–​Body Dualism and Medical Texts Shén and Xin in the Huangdi Neijing Conclusion Conclusions Inner and Outer Reconsidered Personal Identity and Persistence Embodied Cognition Glossary Appendix 1: Time Lines Appendix 2: Semantic Fields of Body, Mind, and Spirit Appendix 3: The Brain in the Huangdi Neijing References Index